Apple just gave owners of older iPhones 4 great reasons not to upgrade to a new device

iOS 13 will supposedly make apps launch faster, reduce the amount of space apps use up, and speed up Face ID unlocking.

source

Apple

Apple made some big announcements this week at WWDC 2019 about the iPhone performance improvements coming with iOS 13, the latest version of Apple’s iPhone operating system.

iOS 13, which Apple says will roll out this fall, will supposedly make apps launch faster, reduce the amount of space apps use up, and speed up Face ID unlocking.

Those would be great improvements that could stop you from buying a new iPhone because your current iPhone is too slow.

If you’re looking to buy a new iPhone because of battery-life issues, you might exchange the battery instead and wait for the new iOS 13 to see if it breathes new life into your old iPhone – it would save you some cash.

Apple announced on Monday its upcoming version of the iPhone operating system, iOS 13, which the company said would bring some key performance improvements to iPhones – at least those that will support iOS 13.

Apple says that with iOS 13, your iPhone will launch apps faster, the amount of storage that apps use up will be reduced, and Face ID will become faster.

Apple’s Craig Federighi didn’t specify which iPhone models would experience these iOS 13 performance upgrades. But it’s likely that all iPhones that support iOS 13 will reap the benefits of Apple’s work over the past year.

Check out what Apple says are the performance improvements coming to iPhones running iOS 13, set to roll out this fall:

1. 30% faster Face ID unlocking.

source

Apple

This is a big one that addresses Face ID unlocking speeds on the iPhone X and iPhone XS generations.

Face ID is slower than the good old-fashioned Touch ID fingerprint sensor, so iOS 13 should hopefully narrow the speed gap between Face ID and Touch ID.

2. 50% smaller app downloads, leading to faster downloads.

source

Apple

Federighi said Apple was packaging apps differently in the App Store, making them half as big. That also means that apps should download faster too, as there’s less to download.

3. 60% smaller app updates.

source

Apple

Sometimes it’s not an app’s storage needs when you first download it that you need to worry about – it’s the updates after downloading that can build up over time and take up a bunch of storage space on your iPhone.

Federighi said that updates would be 60% smaller in iOS 13, which should help reduce the amount of storage that apps use up over time.

4. Apps that launch twice as fast.

source

Apple

That’s not to say an iPhone 7 running iOS 13 will open apps as quickly as the iPhone XS. But Apple is suggesting that apps on an iPhone 7 running iOS 13 will open twice as quickly as they did on the same iPhone 7 running iOS 12.

This is a pretty significant upgrade, as it would make your iPhone feel faster, and you might not feel as if you need to buy a new iPhone if you think yours is getting slow. It’ll hopefully breathe new life into an older iPhone like the iPhone 6S, which will support iOS 13.

If you’re looking to buy a new iPhone because your current iPhone’s battery life is getting short, you might think about getting the battery replaced instead of buying a new iPhone.

source

Stephen Lam/Reuters

It costs up to $80 to get an iPhone battery replaced at an Apple Store, which clearly is a much better value than buying a new iPhone.

If you have the iPhone 6S or newer, you might do well to get your battery replaced and wait for iOS 13 in the fall before making a call on buying a new iPhone.